The present invention relates to a device for feeding and cutting a strip of any type of material on a sewing machine.
Devices are already known which are designed to feed a strip of flexible material such as elastic material unwound from a continuous roll for the purpose of inserting it beneath the presser foot of a conventional sewing machine in order to sew the strip to a layer of fabric. These devices are also equipped with a device for cutting the strip so as to enable a piece of the same to be sewn to the layer of fabric.
According to the prior art, a guide is used for reinserting the strip piece, which has been precut from the roll, beneath the presser foot; the strip being made to slide along the guide by pushing means acting on the strip along the guide. As soon as the strip is inserted beneath the presser foot, it is removed from the roll by the feed mechanisms of the sewing machine.
The guide extends into the vicinity of the presser foot and the stitch forming mechanisms but it is spaced apart from the same to enable the cutting means to cut the strip at the end of the stitching operations. In the conventional devices, the distance between the lower end of the guide and the presser foot renders insertion of the strip beneath the presser foot extremely difficult in that the strip rolls up very easily owing to the inevitable folds or snags already present in the strip or produced by cutting the same. In any case, the strip, per se, will tend to roll up in front of the presser foot, particularly when the strip consists of extremely flexible material.
Furthermore, certain conventional devices are equipped with a delivery mechanism designed to facilitate insertion of the strip beneath the presser foot; this delivery mechanism being rigidly connected to the presser foot and its height being such that when the presser foot is raised it is moved against the end part of the guide so as to produce a continuous guide channel for the strip.
The disadvantage of this solution is that, as the presser foot is raised to different levels in different types of sewing machines, it will be necessary to provide delivery means of different height for each type of machine, thus reducing the space needed by the cutting devices which operate between the guide and the deliver means.
The object of the present invention is to render the device universally applicable and thus enable it to be used on any type of sewing machine regardless of the distance by which the presser foot is raised.
Another object of the present invention is that of also enabling the strip to be inserted beneath the presser foot when the sewing machine is in operation. The technical problem to be solved is that of producing a device in which the continuity of the guide channel is independent of the raising path of the presser foot without having to resort to position adjustment of the guide and the cutting device.